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Before local anti-litter and anti-smoking groups start new efforts to cut down on cigarette litter, city officials want to have all the parties, including the Downtown Business Association, sit down.

Juneau Clean Air and Litter Free, both local groups, are in the process of arranging an extra day of weekly street sweeping downtown, free distribution of personal ashtrays and an education campaign about problems with littering cigarette butts.

One assemblyman thinks the cleanup effort might be premature.

"I don't know that they ought to start that program before we have the dialogue with the owners," said Juneau Assemblyman Johan Dybdahl at an Assembly Committee of the Whole meeting Wednesday, where issues related to the city's smoking ban enacted last year were discussed. "I say that because we're going to set up a them-and-us situation."

The other issue that gave the Assembly pause was what message was being sent by having a third party clean up smokers' litter that, under city codes, is also a business owner's responsibility.

"It's very ironic and unfortunate," Assemblyman Bob Doll said. "Wendy's offer puts us in position of sponsoring ... property owners' duties of clean up, relieving them of the duties. To rely on them to do it" - he motioned to Wendy Hamilton of Juneau Clean Air and a tobacco program coordinator with National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence - "puts us in awkward spot."

Assemblyman Merrill Sanford asked to revisit the smoking issue earlier this month, because of unruly cliques of smokers in the streets at all hours, cigarette litter and other downtown nuisances stoked by the smoking ban.

Private homes aside, the ban covers almost all indoor spaces in Juneau plus a 10-foot radius outside open windows, doors and ventilation intakes. Despite the 10-foot rule, downtown smokers often huddle under sidewalk awnings directly in front of stores.

City Manager Rod Swope said from an enforcement standpoint, the problems break down into two issues: litter, for which community service officers can step up ticketing, and the 10-foot rule, which falls on sworn police officers to enforce.

"They're not thrilled about it" and generally have more serious crimes to deal with, Swope said of local police.

Hamilton said she is arranging to have two people under Gastineau Human Services' halfway house supervision to do an extra round of street cleaning once a week, but wants that to serve only as temporary and immediate help, not part of a long-term solution.

Additionally, Litter Free President Laurie Sica said in a letter that her organization is buying 200 personal ashtrays to give out to smokers and businesses whose door fronts they frequent. The personal ashtrays are small, lidded containers made of a heat resistant plastic.

Cigarette butts are environmentally nasty stuff. Filters are made mostly of cellulose acetate, a form of plastic that is not biodegradable. Spent filters have been found in animals' stomachs and can leach toxic chemicals into waterways.

The cigarette litter is more obvious during the winter, when the city's mechanical street sweepers are mothballed and staff levels low. Swope and city Streets Superintendant Mike Scott said the street sweepers are inoperable in the winter because their fluids are drained to avoid freezing. Swope said heated garage space, part of a new public works facility to be built, could change that in the future.